St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-11-26

UN giving OuL tlIC iN liAiI ~ iiliiilio
Should coming days be cold and dark,
We need not cease or singing;
That perfect rest noUght can modest,
Where golden harp> are ringing
He then explained a passage in the
Gospel of St Matthew, concerning the in
ferior kind of salt that was cast out to
make walks of, to be trOddcn under foot
of men. The subject of DR.. Talmage's
discourse was: "Thc Gospel of Health"
and his text from Proverbs vii, %: It'll
a dart strike through his liver He
said:
There is a fashion in sermonics. A
compa ratively small part of the Bible is
called on for texts Most of the pas
sages of Scripture when announced at
the opening of sermons, Immediately
divide themselves into old discussions
that we have heard from boyhood and
the effect on us is sOpOritic. The auditor
guesses at the start just what the
preacher will say. There are very i'm
pOrtant chapters and verses that have
never been preached from Much Of my
lifetime | am devoting to unlocking
these gold chests and blasting open these
uuarrieS We talk about the heart, and
preach about the heart, and sing about
the heart, but if YOU refer to the physical
organ that.we call the heart, it has not
half so much to do with spiritual health
or disease, moral cNaltatiOn or spiritual
depression, as the organ to the consider
alton of which Solomon calls us in the
text, when he describes sin progressing
"till a dart strike through his liver"
SolOmon's anatomical and physiologi-
cal discoveries were so very great that
he was nearly three thousand years ahead
of the scientists of his day. He, more
than one thousand years before Christ,
seemed to know about the circulation of
the blood, which Harvey discovered six
teen hundred and nineteen years after
Christ, for when Solomon, in Ecclesias-
ties, describing the human body, speaks
of the pitcher at the fountain, he evil
IDENTIFY means the three canals leading
from the heart that receive the blood like
pitchers. When he speaks in Ecclesas-
tes of the silver cord of life, he evil
IDENTITY means the spinal marrow, about
which in our day Drs. Mayo, and Car
penter, and Dalton, and Flint, and
Brown Sequard have experimental.
And Solomon recorded in the Bible thou
sands Of years before scientists discOv-
cred it, that in his time the spinal-cord
relaxed in old age, producing the tremors
of hand and head: cor the silver cord
be loosed"
I preach to you this morning the
Gospel of Health. In taking dag
nosis of the disease of the soul
you must also take the diagnosis of
the diseases of the body. AS if to recog-
nize this one whole book of the New
Testament was written by a physician.
Luke was a doctor, and he discourses
much of physical effects, and he tells of
the good Samaritan's medication of the
wounds by pouring in oil and wine, and
recognizes hunger as a hindrance to
hearing the Gospel, so that the five thou
sand were fed; and records the sparse
diet Of the prodigal away from home,
and the extinguished eyesight of the
beggar by the wayside, and lets us
know of the hemorrhage of the wounds
of the dying Christ and the miraculous
post-mortem resuscitation. And any
estimate of the spiritual condition that
does not include also an estimate of the
physical condition is incomplete When
the doorkeeper of Congress fell dead
from excessive JOY because Burgoyne had
surrendered at Saratoga, and Philip the
Fifth of Spain dropped dead at the news
of his country's defeat in battle, and
Cardinal Wolsey expired as a result
of Henry the Eighth's anathema,
it was demonstrated that the body
and soul are Siamese twins, and
when you thrill the one with Joy or
sorrow you thrill the other. We might
as well recognize the tremendous fact
that there are two mighty fortresses in
the human body, the heart and the liver
the heart, the fortress of all the graces,
the liver the fortress of all the furies.
You may have the head filled with all in
tellectualities, and the ear with all the
musical appreciation, and the mouth with
all eloquence, and the hand with all in
dustries, and the heart with all gene
rosities, and yet "a dart strike through
the liver"
First, let Christian people avoid the
mistake that they are all wrong with
God because they suffer from depression
of spirits. Many consecrated man has
found his spiritual sky befogged, and
his hope of Heaven blotted out, and him
self plunged chin deep in the Slough of
Despond, and has said: "My heart is not
right with God, and think l must have
made mistake, and instead of being
child of light I am child of darkness
No one can feel as gloomy as | feel and
be a Christian" And he has gone to his
minister for consolation, and he has
collected Flavels books, and CeciIs
books, and Baxter's books, and read and
read and read, and prayed and prayed
and prayed, and wept and wept and
wept, and groaned and groaned and
groaned. My brother, your trouble is
not with the heart; it is a gastric disor
der or rebellion of the liver. You
need physician more than you do
clergyman. 1t is not sin that blots out
your hope of Heaven, but bile. 1t not
only yellows your eyeball, and furs your
tongue, and makes your head ache, but
sWoops upon your soul in OBJECTIONS and
forebodings. The devil is after you. He
has failed to despoil your character,
and he does the next best thing for
hlm-he ruff1es your peace of mind.
Nv hen he says that you are not
forgiven soul, when he says that
you are not right with God, when he
says that you will never get to Heaven,
he lies. You are just as sure of Heaven
as though you were there already But
Satan, finding that"he cannot keep you
out OF the promised land of Canaan, has
determined that the spies shall not bring
you any of the Eschol grapes before
hand, and that you shall have nothing